
Latest blog articles
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The shared management of EU funds: new perspectives and challenges
Questions surrounding how the EU budget is spent or audited have been, and will always be, of interest to EU citizens. Formally, the responsibility for the implementation of the budget rests with the Commission, but it is well known that the Member States have a crucial role to play, especially in...
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Vertical information exchange enabled by web crawlers, price comparison sites, and spider software under the competition rules following Samsung (2021)
In its fining decision of 14 September 2021 regarding Samsung, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) imposed a fine of over EUR 39 mln on Samsung Electronics Benelux B.V. (Samsung) (the Decision). According to ACM, Samsung coordinated the retail prices of Samsung television sets...
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The digital market competition with multisided markets: a case of Indian e-commerce
Digital platforms are one of the key developments in facilitating industry 4.0 and are at the center of the multifold benefits the consumers derived through this. An important feature of the digital platforms is the presence of high sunk costs and low marginal costs (UNCTAD, 2019). This occurs since...
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Why AI-enabled price discrimination is not always undesirable: lessons from law and economics
Digitalization has gradually changed business models and reshaped human lifestyles. The rise of business models based on the collection and processing of consumer data allows undertakings to charge business customers and final consumers different prices for the same goods or services, offered at...
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Google v. Oracle: reimplementing application program interfaces does not infringe copyright
The drafters of EU Computer programmes Directive were aware of the competition law implications of extending protection to the interfaces necessary to enable interoperability of programs and devices. Neither the U.S. Congress nor the CONTU seemed to think of interoperability. So the U.S. Copyright...
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The battle between Autorité de la Concurrence and Google to make press publisher’s right a reality in France
In April 2020, the French competition authority adopted an interim decision against Google obliging it to enter into negotiations with press publishers to establish the amount of remuneration for the use of publications protected by the related right for press publishers, as foreseen by the DSM...
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Take no prisoners: litigations strategy against trademark infringement
Can firms undertake costly litigation to protect its brand's core market against infringers? Trademarks are an important intellectual property that plays a significant role in commercialization of a product. Despite several international treaties that aim to protect this right for a firm...
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The digital markets act amendments: be careful what you wish for
On 15 December 2021 the European Parliament has adopted in 1st reading the long-awaited Digital Markets Act – a regulation, aiming to recalibrate competition in the most important sectors of the EU digital economy. As this law and this new regulatory modality are indeed capable to have a...
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Should we sing “Streaming killed the rock star”?
The facto standard for the performers remuneration in the digital context is based on the Common Law model and so, on the contractual agreements between labels and individual performers. Data suggest that following that path the future looks dark for the musicians. I suggest to analyze the...